


Blankets and Soup

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-03
Updated: 2011-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-25 16:17:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/272275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claudia has a cold. Jessi takes care of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blankets and Soup

**Author's Note:**

> For [blood](http://blood.livejournal.com/), who won me in [waltzmatildah](http://waltzmatildahlivejournal.com/)'s Queensland flood auction. Sorry it's so late!

Claudia gets home, kicks the door shut, staggers over to the couch and collapses sideways onto it.

"I take it you don't feel any better?" Claudia's eyes are shut, but Jessi's voice gets nearer, so she weakly reaches one arm out to her.

"Nope." It comes out sounding more like _Dobe_ than anything else. She feels something soft and fuzzy being lowered onto her arm, and opens her eyes. "Luther!"

Jessi's springer spaniel looks up at her happily. She curls her arm into her chest and Luther comes with it, licking her face as soon as he can reach her chin. "You want some soup?" Jessi asks, petting Luther's head.

"Oh, yes, yes please," Claudia sighs gratefully. Jessi settles a blanket over her, Luther shuffling to lie cuddled up to Claudia's front. There are tissues on the arm of the couch, and Claudia gropes above her head for them, moving the trash can closer once she has hold of them.

"You know," Jessi says when she comes back to find Claudia blowing her nose so hard her teeth have started rattling, "I don't actually have any plans tonight. I could rent us a movie or two, if you'd like?"

"You are the best roommate who ever lived," Claudia declares, dropping another tissue into the trash. "Um, and could you get more of these, please?"

"Already got some." Jessi rummages in her purse and pulls out a half-squashed fresh box of tissues. "Picked these up on my way home. Here." She opens the box and puts it on the couch arm.

"Thanks," Claudia sighs, feeling her nose already start to clog again. She curls further around Luther, half a slump. "I hate being sick."

"I know, sweetie," Jessi says, shooting her a sympathetic smile. "When the soup's done, I'll get us something old and silly, how's that?"

"Or something old and romantic," Claudia suggests, cuddling Luther, who wriggles until he can reach her chin again and gives it a sleepy lick. He settles back in spooning position, lets out a huffy breath, and closes his eyes.

Claudia has to sit up once Jessi brings her a bowl of soup. It's warm and it's chicken and she just sits for a minute, her sleeves over her hands, holding the bowl and basking in the steam. Then she runs through the rest of the first box of tissues and eats the soup, dipping in soft bread to soak up the broth. By the time she's tipping the last of the soup into her mouth, Jessi has got back from the rental store with _Dirty Dancing_ , _Mary Poppins_ and _Sixteen Candles_.

"I didn't know what mood you're in," she says.

"I don't mind," Claudia shrugs, looking at the boxes. "I like them all."

"Well, how about we watch this one and then see if we want to watch another," Jessi says, holding up _Mary Poppins_. It's a movie that makes Claudia think of Stacey and those days in eighth grade when they'd have Baby-sitters Club slumber parties and Stacey would always bring her _Mary Poppins_ video to them.

"Yeah," she smiles now, making a mental note to text Stacey as soon as she has the energy.

The movie is just as great and silly as ever. Jessi sits next to Claud on the couch, Luther across their laps, and Jessi pulls Claudia's head down onto her shoulder and strokes her hair throughout the whole movie. Even when Claudia has to move away to blow her nose. It's a slow steady rhythm, soothing and comforting in equal measure.

"Thanks," Claudia says when the credits roll.

Jessi hugs her, not too tightly, but so warmly Claudia feels like it's the first real hug she's had all month. "It's what friends are for, stupid," she says. Claudia can hear the smile in it.

Her head is slightly spinning, so after drinking the orange juice Jessi insists on bringing her, she lies on the couch again. Luther's off begging Jessi for food, and for about ten minutes, while Jessi fixes her own dinner and Luther's, Claudia just shuts her eyes and dozes lightly. The blankets around her are soft; a housewarming gift from Mary Anne, hand-knitted. The bracelet Mal gave her when she graduated from Stoneybrook Community College digs into her wrist slightly until she turns it so it isn't quite under her head. She still hasn't taken off her sneakers since she got home, the ones Stacey gave her for her last birthday. They're still flecked with paint from today's second-graders, one of whom got a little boistrous with his project. When she's over this damn cold, she'll scrub the laces clean; with any other pair she'd just leave it, maybe fleck some more paint on them and have it be a feature, but these are the laces Kristy wore when she scored her first home run playing college baseball. She gave them to Claudia the next Christmas, and Claudia had promised to keep them nice.

Jessi comes back in to sit on the couch, moving Claudia's head into her lap, and they put _Dirty Dancing_ on next. "My mom used to watch this movie all the time," Jessi says, as Baby first appears on the screen.

"I don't blame her," Claudia says. "It's so romantic, and —"

"Patrick Swayze's such a hunk," they chorus. They dissolve into giggles, which makes it even harder for Claudia to breathe than it already was, but it's fun anyway. They keep whispering "Hunk!" to each other whenever Johnny's on the screen, at least for the first half of the movie, and then giggling.

She falls asleep just before Johnny turns up to take Baby out of the corner. Jessi must have moved her, because she wakes up a little while later. She's still on the couch, but tucked in, pillows under her head, and Luther asleep on her legs.

"You okay?" Jessi asks. She's sitting in the armchair, reading under a lamp. Claudia smiles at her.

"My head's filled with cotton wool, my nose is stuffed up, I'm going to need more cough meds soon, but — yeah. I'm okay." Luther snuffles in his sleep. Jessi smiles and turns back to her book, and Claudia lets her eyes drift closed.


End file.
